Microsoft Promises Windows Recall Won’t Be a Security Nightmare

Microsoft is finally showing off its overhaul to the Recall feature, an AI-powered tool that takes periodic screenshots of user activity on a computer. The update comes in response to security concerns raised after initial plans to launch Recall in June were postponed.

Originally, Recall was set to debut as an on-by-default feature with Copilot Plus PCs, capturing screenshots every few seconds and storing them in a way other programs like malware could access. In June, that and other possible security issues caused Microsoft to announce it was making some changes. Recall is now an opt-in experience that is off by default, at least for now. Users must now actively choose to enable the feature, and can completely uninstall it if desired. Additionally, all sensitive Recall data, including screenshots, is now fully encrypted and tied to the user’s Windows Hello authentication.

To further improve security, Microsoft has shifted all screenshot processing to a virtualization-based security enclave, isolating Recall’s operations within a virtual machine on the device. The UI app layer has no direct access to raw screenshots or the database, and data is only passed to the app’s memory temporarily when the user interacts with Recall and authenticates through Windows Hello. Recall will only function on Copilot Plus PCs that meet specific security requirements, including BitLocker encryption and virtualization-based security. The company’s internal security team and a third-party vendor have reviewed and tested the updated features.

Recall was going to give a complete visual history with a timeline and search box without Users having much control. Now, users can filter specific apps and websites from Recall, and sensitive content filtering will automatically block health and financial websites from being stored. That’s the kind of thing you don’t want your PC to save images of with a search box to easily find. Users can also delete data from specific time ranges, apps, or websites or clear the entire Recall database.

Even with the new update addressing a lot of security concerns, Microsoft stated that Recall still will not ship on Copilot Plus PCs until it has undergone further testing by Windows Insiders, with a preview expected in October.

Source: The Verge via Microsoft